Brown--Abraham, Sarah & Hagar

Abraham, Sarah and Hagar

James D. Brown

Pastor, Market Square Presbyterian Church
Harrisburg, PA

March 16, 2003

Genesis 12:1-4; 16:1-16; 17:1-2, 15-22
Romans 4:13-25; 5:1-5

Sometimes I refer to having chosen passages of Scripture for a particular Sunday. As I have worked on my sermon this past week, I've been increasingly aware that today's lessons from the Old and New Testaments have chosen me and through me, all of us. I think you'll see why as we look to the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar.

I've been reading a remarkable book that I commend for your own reading this Lenten season: Abraham, A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, by Bruce Feiler. Much has been written since 9/11 about the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In every account Abraham lies at the center of the discussion, for he is seen as the father of all three of these major religions. You will be interested to note that in the present moment there are about twelve million Jews in the world, a billion Muslims and two billion Christians, all looking back to the man who, as Paul puts, never wavered in trusting the promises God made to him.

Today I want us to take a close look at Abraham and his two wives, Sarah and Hagar. Next week we will follow up with the story of their sons, Ishmael and Isaac. The place we'll begin is modern-day Iraq, which is Abraham's ancestral homeland. Haran was in what was then called Mesopotamia, located on a northern tributary of the Euphrates River. As the story begins Abraham is still called Abram, meaning in Hebrew exalted ancestor. Later his name will evolve to Abraham, meaning ancestor of a multitude.

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.So Abram went, as the Lord had told him." Listen to what Feiler has to say about one of the most significant passages in all of Scripture:

Abraham makes the leap [of faith] and thus secures his reputation for all time. The text is so matter of fact that is almost masks the significance: "Abram went forth as the Lord had commanded him." He does so silently, joining the covenant with his feet, not his words. The wandering man does what he does best, he walks. Only now he walks with God. And by doing so, Abraham leaves an indelible set of footprints. He doesn't believe in God; he believes God. He doesn't ask for proof; he provides the proof.Abraham's unspoken covenant with God is so majestic that it forms a central plank in all three Abrahamic faiths.[1]

We'll come back to how Judaism, Christianity and Islam understand Abraham, but first I want us to note the place of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar in the unfolding drama of the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings. Chapter 16 finds Abraham and his family in Canaan, which was to become home to the Israelites. It begins with the mournful line, "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no children." What happens next strains our credulity: Sarah said to Abraham, "You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go into my Egyptian slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah. The plot quickly thickens.

Here's how Rabbi Norman Cohen imagines the inner workings of Abraham's mind as all this unfolds:

He closed his eyes and remembered howSarah, unable to conceive, urged him to sleep with Hagar her Egyptian hand-maid, so that she could provide him with a male heir. She thought that by Hagar giving birth to a son she herself would be elevated, at least in her own eyes if not in his. Sarah never imagined that he would develop any kind of special affection for Hagar's son or for that matter for the servant herself. What ever Sarah's expectations, [he] came to treat Hagar as a wife and had much affection for her and for his first-born son, Ishmael.[2]

Cohen underscores what you may have missed when I read the lesson: Hagar was given to Abraham as a wife (l'ishah) and not as a concubine. It's important to grasp Hagar's exalted role and not to give in to the temptation to see her as a "nobody" in relationship to Sarah, even though this is what Sarah wanted due to her smoldering rage at having been supplanted for a while.

Hagar is promised innumerable children. Feiler notes the remarkable fact that in all of Hebrew Scripture, Hagar "is the only woman to receive personally the divine blessing of descendants, making her, in effect, a female patriarch." He goes on to draw our attention to the equally remarkable fact that when Hagar says, "You are El-roi, or God of my vision," she "is the only person in the [Hebrew] Bible-male or female-ever to call God by name."[3] We have to jump ahead to the New Testament to find a similar case-and that is when Jesus calls God Abba, Father.

The descendants of Hagar's innumerable children are today's Muslims. Ishmael's progeny became the Bedouin tribes that were to be the seedbed for Islam when Muhammad came upon the world scene 600 years after the life of Jesus of Nazareth. What needs to be clearly understood from the Bible's perspective is that all this is set in motion by the same God who is also to enact a covenant through the descendants of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah.

I won't dwell on Isaac's birth, because it is better known. Sarah is so old by the time God promises her a son of her own that both she and Abraham are falling on their faces in laughter at the thought of her becoming pregnant. But she does, and Isaac will be Abraham's second born son. It is through Isaac and Jacob and all their descendents that the covenant with the Jewish people will unfold throughout human history.

We'll talk more about both Ishmael and Isaac next week. For today I want us stand back and recognize that Christians, Jews and Muslims all trace their heritage to Abraham, and that we are all of one stock. For the Jew, the call of Abraham sets in motion a migration from Haran in modern day Iraq to the land of Canaan, which through the descendants of Isaac is to become holy ground. For Christians, Abraham, in going out not knowing where he was to go, becomes the father of faith, of trust in God beyond all seeing and knowing. For the Muslim, Abraham, by fulfilling God's commandments, "was a paragon of piety, an upright man obedient to God," as the Koran puts it. The word Muslim actually means one who submits to God, and is rooted in obedience like Abraham's.[4]

I can't think of a better backdrop for reflecting on what is happening on the world stage at this very moment as members of these three great religious streams wreak havoc against one another. I don't know about you, but I can't remember when I have felt so distraught, so anxious about the situation the world is in. It feels as if we are sleepwalkers in a bad dream that can only have a horrible outcome. And this is no way for the a descendant of Abraham to feel.

I read a story this week by Lee Griffith, who grew up in Ephrata, which hearkens back to another time when a similar cloud hovered over humankind:

In 1962, I was a small child with still-growing feet. When the hand-me- downs from my older brother didn't seem to fit, my father took me to buy shoes at the only shoe store in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

When we entered the shop, we were greeted by the sound of music coming from a radio on the shelf. As I plopped down into a chair with a slanting footrest, the music was interrupted. I keyed into the somber tone of the radio announcer's voice. When the announcer said that there was a blockade of Cuba, and that Russian ships were approaching the blockade zone, I knew it was deadly serious.As I sat, a wave of horror swept over me.

But neither my father nor the shop-owner reacted at all. "Try on this pair," the shoe man said. The president is meeting in emergency session with the National Security Council, the radio announcer intoned. "Can you wiggle your toes?" The armed forces of both nations are on highest alert. "Does it rub on your heel?" Nuclear war could be imminent. "Try walking in them." In the event of war, head to the nearest shelter.

I did not know what to take away from that incident. The idea of war seemed to those two adults as unremarkable and inevitable, as removed from their power to remedy as the setting of the sun. Perhaps when one became an adult, one no longer experienced anguish or horror -- or did not express it. Adults pretended to hear and see no evil.[5]

Perhaps because of the fits and starts on the world diplomatic stage in our nation's lurch toward war, the same air of unreality is our daily lot. This week MOAB arrived on the scene, the mother of all bombs -- a 20,000 pound behemoth designed to wreak havoc in places like Iraq, the land from which Abraham came. Maybe it's because of the slow-motion quality of our preparation to make a pre-emptive strike against Iraq that we have had so much time to reflect on what MOABS do to others -- and so much time to realize what an awesome thing it is to attack other descendants of Abraham in his birthplace with things like MOABS.

On Wednesday of this week, Associate Pastor Kelly Wiant-Thralls and I received a letter with the face of Saddam Hussein on one of the stamps. It took me aback. "What's this?" I asked myself.

Then I quickly realized that it was a reply to a letter that Kelly and I had sent on behalf of Market Square Presbyterian Church to the five Presbyterian Churches in Iraq -- five, mind you, in the whole country. We had told them of our anxious concern for their well-being and that we were in solidarity with them.

Out of the blue, here I was holding their reply, hand written with the greatest of care and signed by Pastor Hiatham Jazrawl and Elder Akram Jazrawl. As I read, close your eyes and picture a small congregation on Almas Street in Kirkuk, Iraq, one of five Presbyterian Churches in a country about the size of California:

Dear brothers in Christ:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. We received your letter of January, 2003 in which you express your feeling regarding our situation. We with our church congregation appreciate with thankfulness your feeling and your worry about us. We ask your good self and all our brothers and sisters in your church to continue praying for us and for our country. Our faith is that our Lord Jesus Christ will never change. He promises to be with us whatever will happen. Psalm 34:7 says that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and Psalm 55:22 says cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. Isaiah 59:1 says surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save. That's what we believe in, and after all, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? (Romans 8:35) We are praying continually and we give thanks in all circumstances.

For your information we have five Presbyterian Churches in Iraq, one in Mosul, one is Basrah, two in Baghdad and our church in Kirkuk. Our love to all of you and peace to the brothers and love in faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with undying love.

Stay in the Lord's love.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Haitham Jazrawl and Elder Akram Jazrawl

What a remarkable testimony from a small congregation in the beleaguered nation of Iraq. Saddam Hussein's face peering at me from the stamp on the envelope reminded me that he is an egomaniacal leader. But what was inside the envelope deepened my own resolve not to give in to the malaise of thinking that war is inevitable, and to work and pray for a peaceful way out of the awful mess the world is in.

Tonight our congregation will be hosting one of over 5,000 Global Candlelight Vigils taking place around the world at 7:00 p.m. in each time zone. We will gather at the foot of the cross for Scripture and prayer and song, and then will light candles and go outside in a silent witness on behalf of brothers and sisters in Kirkuk and our own troops who are in harm's way, as well as all who stand to lose life and limb in an invasion that seems so close at hand, especially the ten million children in Iraq.

In his call for such a global witness, Bishop Desmond Tutu said:

On Sunday evening people in every corner of the globe will shine beacons of light throughout the world. May our candles rekindle the light of reason and hope so that war will be averted in Iraq and peace will prevail in the world.

I for one will be praying that the God of Abraham and Jesus and Muhammad will guide the leaders of the world toward insistent and persistent disarming of Saddam Hussein, so that war can be averted. I hope you will join me here, and if you cannot be here, that you will pause at 7:00 p.m. and pray fervently for peace, peace for all the children of Abraham.

Note: Rev. Brown followed this sermon the following week with "War and Peace: Ishmael and Isaac."

Notes:

[3] Feiler, pp. 66-67. Return to text

[4] Feiler, p. 45. Return to text

[5] Lee Griffith, "The Work of Choosing Peace, The Other Side, March and April, 2003, p. 17
Return to text

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