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Abraham - Genesis 21
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Over the last few weeks, we've been walking through the story of Abraham. And I hope that what we're about to look at tonight doesn't just tidally and neatly fit into our brains somewhere, but that ultimately each one of us here are able to encounter God tonight. I think that sometimes our tendency, especially with old testament stories, is to somehow keep them hermetically sealed somewhere in our brains. But these stories should not exist in our minds. An easy to digest, safe and sterile, take as you need doses.
Speaker 1:And as we have walked through the story of Abraham, I've been really excited to hear the feedback from our community and how they've interacted with this series. So, I hope tonight can be another one of those nights. Last week, we looked at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this is a story with many difficult images. We looked the ugliness of rape and patriarchy.
Speaker 1:We discussed God's judgment as sulfur that rained down and destroyed these cities. And we found father Abraham bargaining with God in the midst of these hard images. In the bargaining, see Yahweh as a god who sets himself apart from the pagan gods of the surrounding cultures. He is imminently approachable and gracious, desiring not to flex his cosmic muscle, but daring to be in relationship with his creation. Listening to us, speaking to us, and allowing us to take part in the unfolding of his shalom in the world.
Speaker 1:Now, this week we'll be looking at the story of Abraham's sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Like last week though, this story isn't well contained in a single chapter. Parts of the story are found separated across 10 chapters and have interjecting stories coming into it. So I won't have time to read each piece of the story, but I will do my best to paraphrase. And the story and we'll try to understand a little bit of what this is trying to say to us here tonight.
Speaker 1:But before we get into it, will you pray with me? Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that we can enter into these stories, that your that your word has meaning even today across the span of time and space and culture and history, father. So as we open your word today, and as we look at it, and we as we try to interact with it with our heads and with our hearts, that you would just be present in this process, encountering us and inviting us into your kingdom. We ask this in your name, and we love you, father.
Speaker 1:Amen. We started the series back in the October. And in the very first sermon, we looked at Genesis chapter 12. And this is the place in the story where Yahweh first speaks to Abram, and invites him to leave his family and his country, and travel to some unknown land. And part of this invitation was a promise from Yahweh that Abram would have many descendants.
Speaker 1:But Abraham was already an old man. He was 75 years at this point. Despite what you or my may think is reasonable for a man of that age to do, Abraham did exactly that. He left his home and traveled to a foreign land. And after many years of traveling and wandering, we catch up with Abraham and he's despondent.
Speaker 1:Yahweh's still not given him the son that was promised him, and he fears that he will die without one. So in his despondent state, he has decided to make one of his slaves his heir. Listen to what the text says. Then the word of the Lord came to him, this man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir. He took him outside and said, look up to the sky and count the stars, if indeed you can count them.
Speaker 1:Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And a sermon, Abraham and Sarah have a child and everyone lives happily ever after. Right? Thanks for coming. Story over, Nothing complicated happens.
Speaker 1:Exactly like our lives, never messy, never convoluted, just straightforward and simple. Well, unfortunately, no. This isn't how the story goes and they wait another eleven years. Eleven years from original promise to the point in which their patient run their patients run out, and they decide to take matters into their own hands in order to conceive a child. Now, Sarah, Abraham's wife, had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.
Speaker 1:So she said to Abraham, there Abram, the Lord has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my slave. Perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed to what Sarah said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarah his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
Speaker 1:He slept with Hagar and she conceived. Now, this was common practice in the ancient world and I think it may be too easy to distance ourselves entirely from this piece of the story. I've walked alongside couples who encounter fertility issues. I've seen the pain of unsuccessful attempt after unsuccessful attempt to conceive. And there aren't very many words you can use in that space to speak to that pain.
Speaker 1:But a benefit of our modern world is that after traditional biological methods prove unsuccessful, we can turn to medical intervention for help. There professionals who use in vitro fertilization or sperm and egg donation. There are pharmaceutical options. And and even when all of those methods fail, there's surrogacy, which doesn't look entirely different from what Sarah has just suggested here. And if it does, it does only in the fact that instead of intercourse, a medical procedure is used to conceive.
Speaker 1:And it would be real easy to stop identifying at this point with Abram and Sarah, citing archaic and long dead practices for obtaining an heir. Even the fact of an heir is a little lost on us, I think, sometimes. But it is here that we are most easiest able to enter the story. We enter through the pain of desiring something we can't have, but that we want. We enter through the pain of waiting.
Speaker 1:And we enter through the pain that sometimes comes with trust. Here we see Abraham and Sarah not as backward ancient people, but people like us with hearts that are fragile and needing to meet God. Now, adding insult to injury, this slave woman Hagar not only conceives, but she conceives pretty quickly. It's fair to imagine that Sarah is hurt here. Hagar is personified as a reminder that Sarah cannot conceive.
Speaker 1:And for Hagar, maybe some conceit has taken root inside of her heart. After all, she is a simple slave woman who's gonna birth the heir for her master. And these attitudes create fiction between Sarah and Hagar. I don't know how many guys in this room have gone through this experience, but I imagine it would be uncomfortable to have your wife on one hand, and the woman you have gotten pregnant on the other hand, and they're fighting. And so, Sarah goes to her husband and accuses Hagar of treating her with contempt.
Speaker 1:And all Abram can say is that she belongs to you, you do what you want with her, which is dodging the biggest bullet ever. Like, that's totally passing the buck. It's not even fair. But, Sarah does this. And what she does is just treat Hagar horribly.
Speaker 1:And eventually, Hagar decides to run away. And while on the run, an angel of the lord meets her and says, go back to your mistress and submit to her, the angel added. I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count. The angel of the lord also said to her, you are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your misery.
Speaker 1:After this encounter, Hagar does exactly that. She travels back to Abraham and Sarah and gives birth. And at the age of 86, Abraham is a father. But this is not what God had in mind. Abraham and Sarah had taken matters into their own hand and circumvented God in order to conceive.
Speaker 1:And instead of blessing, like was the intent of their child, Ishmael brought fighting. Sarah was fighting with Hagar, and in turn, Sarah and Abram were And that's just not good for anyone. It's not a happy camp at this point. And this story is starting to look a lot like an ancient sitcom. I mean, about it.
Speaker 1:Sitcom storylines are propelled by some combination of the characters' bad timing, bad decisions, impatience, and what we actually laugh at is the inevitable situational conflict that comes from it. And we here, the reader, are watching it all unfold before our eyes. And it's funny. And there's there's comedy in this, and we will see later on that the writer actually uses a fair bit of humor in this story. But So once again, this couple is in a season of waiting.
Speaker 1:This time, thirteen years. And God visits Abraham again and tells him one more time that he will have an heir and many descendants. This is what it says. As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations.
Speaker 1:No longer will you be called Abraham. Your name will be Abraham. For I have made you the father of many nations. I will make you feel I will make you very fruitful. I will make nations of you and kings will come from you.
Speaker 1:Big promises. I will establish my covenant covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come to be your god and the god of your descendants after you. As for Sarah, your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarah. Her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and she will surely give you a son.
Speaker 1:I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations. Kings of people will come from her. Abraham fell face down. He laughed and said to himself, will a son be born to a man 100 years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of 90?
Speaker 1:And it's at this point in the story where Abraham actually does something that should sound pretty familiar to us. He bargains with God. And he says, look, God, I am too old to have a son. It's not gonna happen. I'm old.
Speaker 1:She's old. But I've got Ishmael here. Make him the child of the covenant. But Yahweh insist that that is not his plan. And the story goes on.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's interesting though that when Sarah hears of the same news, her response is exactly like her husband's. This is what it says, Sarah laughed within herself. An old woman like me? Get pregnant with this old man of a husband? God said to Abraham, why did she laugh saying, me?
Speaker 1:Have a baby? But Sarah lied. She said, I didn't laugh because she was afraid. But God said, yes, you did. You laughed.
Speaker 1:I used the message translation for this to con because it better conveys some of the conversational comedy that's happening here. First of all, I can imagine my parents and my grandparents having the same lovingly self deprecating conversation as this, if they were told at the age of 86 that they were gonna have a child. So much so that I even imagine it happening in my grandparents' kitchen. So it's just funny to me that way. It's also funny because Sarah gets caught laughing at a joke that isn't a joke.
Speaker 1:And this has never happened to me. It's happened to me. But it's like you're at a work Christmas party, and you're listening. And your boss says something that you think is so ridiculous that you laugh. But instead of a conspicuous quiet laugh, it's exactly the opposite.
Speaker 1:And your boss hears you, and he says, why did you laugh? And to save yourself social embarrassment, your one move is, I didn't laugh, when everybody knows you laughed. This is what's going on here. But, like too often, in our own time, what is meant to be experienced as joy is tainted by cynicism. The reason this is so funny to Abraham and Sarah is because the idea of having a child at this age is just plain absurd.
Speaker 1:They didn't believe God. They didn't believe God when he first promised a child. They didn't believe God when they took matters into their own head and had Ishmael. And they don't believe God now. But faithful to his promise, twenty five years after they receive the first promise, God does exactly what he says he's gonna do.
Speaker 1:And we pick up the story in Genesis 21. Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore son to Abraham in his old age. At the very time God had promised him, Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him as God commanded him.
Speaker 1:Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, God has brought me laughter and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me. And she added, who would have said that Abraham said to Abraham that Sarah would have nursed children. Yet, I've born him a son at this old age. Notice the difference in the laughter from chapter 18 to now?
Speaker 1:The laughter Sarah is experiencing is no longer the cynical laughter of disbelief. It is the joyful laughter from having witnessed the faithfulness of God. How often do we use cynicism as an armor to protect ourselves? From trusting ourselves, ourselves, from trusting others, but a lot of times from trusting God. How often does cynicism sit just on the periphery of our life, waiting to creep in and taint hope.
Speaker 1:Cynicism tries to say, that's not possible. God can't do that. And my caution here is be wary of cynicism in your life. If it takes hold in your you just may find that laughter that was meant to be full of joy is somehow a little bit more hollow. But back to the story.
Speaker 1:From first promise to the birth of Isaac, it's been 10 chapters. 10 chapters of watching Abraham and Sarah make some mistakes, and wait uncomfortably for God to do the thing he said he was going to do. And finally, when the birth of this covenant child comes, all we get is six verses. If you feel like this is a little bit anticlimactic, good. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're supposed to. The author is trying to communicate something. It's been twenty five years. Abraham should have run through the camp screaming and celebrating. Or maybe the couple should have thrown a feast with music and dancers.
Speaker 1:Or maybe, if you're more stoic, he should have at least built an altar. I mean, he's a 100 years old and he just had a son. But there's none of that. Why? Can I suggest that by creating an absence of any fanfare, the writer is signaling us to pause and ask ourselves, why should there be?
Speaker 1:Was God's ability or maybe his intent to keep his promise ever in question? The right answer is no. No. What God says, God does. No question about it.
Speaker 1:But that is only because you and I aren't in the middle of that waiting, and we know the end of the story. Imagine you are Abraham or Sarah. Would the answer be so easy? I I mean, I don't know. They waited twenty four years.
Speaker 1:That's most of my life so far, and that promise still has not come to be manifest. In other words, what is the stat statute of limitations on the promises of God? See, for the author, there is no reason to celebrate the birth of Isaac because his birth was never in doubt. And the negative space left absence of any drawn out celebration activities exposes our doubt that God could or would do the thing he was going to do. Listen to what John H Walton in his commentary in Genesis says about it.
Speaker 1:What God does should never cease to amaze us, but that he consistently shows himself capable of doing what he does without apparent effort is strikingly commonplace and unremarkable. But we still don't have our happy ending. Because ultimately, this is not the story of a single son, it is the story of two sons. And by this point in the story, Ishmael is 14 years old. And like any 14 year old boy, he's a bit of a brat.
Speaker 1:And so, on one occasion, shortly after the birth of Isaac, everybody's milling around the camp. And Sarah's put Isaac down, and she's probably being congratulated and hugging and celebrating with some friends. And she looks over to where she's left her son, and what does she see? Ishmael teasing and mocking Isaac. And as you can imagine, this upsets Sarah and her motherly protective impulse kicks in.
Speaker 1:She goes to Abram and says, I don't like the way Ishmael treats Isaac. Please send him and his mother away. And Abraham is upset with his wife's request. After all, she is asking him to send his 14 year old son away into the wilderness. And there isn't like a Whole Foods out there in the wilderness.
Speaker 1:This is probably, he knows, sending them to die. So once again, he speaks with God, and this is how God responds. Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also because he is your offspring.
Speaker 1:At this point, the biblical writer has made it very clear that Ishmael is not the son that Yahweh has promised. Abraham knew it, Sarah knew it, Hagar knew it, and as a 14 year old boy, Ishmael probably could have put two and two together. Ishmael is of course the resultant offspring of a decision of both Abraham and Sarah to take matters into their own hands rather than trust in God. But what we see again in the story of Abraham is that God is not bound by our lack of trust in him. He is in fact always loving and gracious God, who models himself as a father to the small and to the weak and to the orphans of the world.
Speaker 1:And even though Ishmael is not is technically outside of the covenant he made with Abraham. God treats Ishmael like a father and blesses him. I think we can see that even our mistakes are not beyond God's grace and God's redemption. As early as the year '48 Common Era, in the book of Galatians, the New Testament writer Paul helps us understand this story. For Paul, Ishmael and Isaac had become metaphors.
Speaker 1:On one hand, was Ishmael, who reflects our tendency to lose hope and act out of a desire to obtain promised. It's ultimately a prideful position, insisting that we know better than God the things that we need. Well, Isaac represents trust in God for the things of God, and it is a humbling position which requires trust and hope in Christ. Ishmael was born out of human actions in order to secure an heir. Just like in the time of Galatians, there was a group of people who wanted to insist that circumcision was a way to salvation.
Speaker 1:Whereas Isaac was a long awaited fulfillment of a promise from God, just like Christ was a long awaited messiah, the fulfillment of a promise for salvation. Hope cannot exist beside our pride. Hope is not simultaneously saying, I trust God, while making contingency plans for the moment he doesn't come through with the goods. And by this, I do not mean that we become totally inactive. Please not hear me today that that if you know people or you and your partner are struggling with fertility issues, to not seek medical intervention.
Speaker 1:I'm also not suggesting that if you're not circumcised to go and do that. But what I am suggesting is this, ask yourself, where in life has hope become just too hard? Maybe you are here today and you struggle with the fact that you're single, so you've begun to live out relationship after relationship that just may be a little empty. Or maybe you're here and you struggle with depression, depression, and with no real health in sight, you've turned to self medication to deal with the pain. Or maybe you fear the scarcity that you see all over the news and you see in the world, world, and so you've embraced unhealthy work life balance in order to secure a fat wallet.
Speaker 1:Or maybe you're here with any other host of of stories, which result in all the same thing, giving up on hope. What I want to say is this, that us giving up on hope does not mean that God gives up on us. On Friday, I was here trying to write. I started to see posts about the events in Paris. I drove home, listened to the reports of what was happening there.
Speaker 1:And I heard people hiding in shops, that the city had been shut down, and people had been killed. And I found myself feeling like hope was too hard. I started to lose sight of Christ and his promise of peace. I mean, after all, that's his deal. Right?
Speaker 1:Prince of Peace. I noticed my internal dialogue switching from writing a sermon to coming up with well articulated, well constructed, justified arguments for our government's involvement in militarized action. As I sat and all the sadness and grief and frustration and anger coalesced, I was hopeless. I had succumbed to this temptation that if God can't do it, we'll do it. If God can't bring peace, we'll bring peace.
Speaker 1:Yet in the midst of this, I started to experience the small still presence of God with his invitation to hope, hope, to believe that God has not walked away from this place, that God himself is grieved by the war, terrorism, and violence that we do to each other in almost seemingly never ending cycles. God is not still. God is not not active in this world. And every time we give up on hope, we give up on the idea that God is still present and still working to bring about his kingdom and his shalom. And in realizing this, we realize that we are not passive bystanders in the process, but that we are invited to take part in bringing about God's peace and his kingdom here.
Speaker 1:What this looks like is that every time we love, every time we forgive, every time we extend grace, we act against hopelessness and affirm forward. As you look inside of yourself today, I invite you to go to those places inside of you where you may have given up hope. These places are gonna hurt. Maybe it's a place where you've given up on a promise of God. These things are not pleasant.
Speaker 1:They remind us of our hubris. But it is my conviction that if we are somehow able to introduce Christ back into these places, he will navigate us out of hopelessness and cynicism towards hope and laughter. Will you pray with me? Jesus Christ, you are our source of hope, and you are our best hope. Help us today to remain hopeful, never despairing that you have walked away from us.
Speaker 1:For those of us here today that feel like they have hoped in you only to feel like they have hoped in something empty, walk beside them. Humble us today. Save us from our know it all ism. We want to trust you even though we struggle to trust. We confess that it is too often easier to take control than to trust you even when we are just trying to provide the good things of life for us and those around us.
Speaker 1:And give us the vision to see the goodness of your kingdom, the hope of your shalom, and the commitment participate with you in these things here on earth. We love you, father. Amen.