Genesis 21:8-21
Proper 7 (12) – Year A
Does G*D know everything, including the future, or is G*D still inventing, creating, growing into new life? An old, old question.
Does G*D already know Ishmael will be rescued by G*D and so sending Hagar and Ishmael cavalierly onward is but an opportunity to have G*D be seen in a better light, later?
Does G*D agree with laughing Sarah who is no longer laughing about Ishmael’s playing? (“Laughing” can be a euphemism that would make them lovers and “playing” can stand for sexual activity that would be a cause for banishment.) Then is it only after hearing Ishmael’s cries (but not Hagar’s?) that G*D wakes to the enormity of the consequence for the permission-giving already done?
So who is the good and the bad here? Sarah—protecting her own and giving up another? Abraham—giving a skin of water, so little against a large desert? Hagar—lifting a voice in weeping even if departing without a confrontation? Unnamed—(Ishmael) a nimrod anticipating a later Esau’s reversal? Isaac—so young, so symbolic?
Of these six archetypes, which most closely approximates your past? your present? your desire? Note that each is a mixed bag and so this question is not about ideals but the mixture of motives and actions that is you.
How do you play this one from G*D’s perspective? Do Abel and a Flood finally dawn on G*D and a rainbow sparkle? Was it in G*D’s cards all along? Is Ishmael’s inheritance claim upon G*D primary or secondary, a given or an afterthought?
How does this play out within an institutional church? Is it the role of priests to play Sarah and cast out those with whom they disagree or accuse of one heresy or another? Consider how prophets are cared for in the same way as Ishmael—seen as second-class rather than first-born and cast out, but, while crying, cared for.
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finding our fearless place
pushes us beyond the surface
where crosses around necks
are protective amulets
saving one from so living
that a cross comes to our back
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
See Paul's allegory of this story in Galatians 4.
How often do we find ourselves, like Abraham, ambiguous in the face of conflict between Ishmael, treasured older son, and Isaac, elected younger son. Choices seem to have been forced upon us. How do we care for the outcast – lade them with provisions for their journey? How do we care for the privileged – put them at risk to test the provision of G*D?
Too often we see the ambiguity of life resolved too quickly. We decide only for one – lifting them up as special and pushing away the loser.
We struggle here with how to love Ishmael and Isaac that, over the known horizon, they might find a reconciliation at Abraham’s death, that the descendants of a castaway Ishmael might be a vehicle for rescuing a castaway descendant of Isaac – Joseph (run out and read Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s, Godwrestling ).
We struggle with how to love the literalist and the metaphorist, those who find grace through constraint and those who find grace through freedom, those who find meaning in ancient creeds and those who thrive in the midst of new understandings.
May we be bold enough to choose and be wise enough to care for the unchosen. On the surface this is nonsense, but deep down we know it reflects who we are – part dim and distant treasure and part deeply and delightedly desired. Do we not want our willful parts cared for and our gifted parts honored? May we offer this to others for there are reconciliations yet to come between ourselves and ourselves, ourselves and others, ourselves and creation.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/june2002.html
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Another blog reader, M DeCarlen, comments:
I can think of two ways to speak about the chosen and unchosen: they are relegated to that status by others and then we find ourselves negotiating “in-between them” OR they are relegated to that status by us and then we find ourselves living with the ramifications of making someone unchosen or chosen.
I feel mostly ashamed when I make someone an outsider to establish my ego needs of being “elect”. I am not even sophisticated enough to “treasure” the one I am making into an outsider. It is a junior high tactic that I use when I feel another’s arrogance and/or dishonesty. In the church this happens mostly with colleagues. The truth is that Jesus calls us to tell the truth to ourselves about behaving with this kind of arrogance which pushes people out so that we can be in ... Jesus also calls us to then repent.
Another thing mentionable is that according to Muslim tradition, Hagar (Sarah’s slave girl impregnated by Abraham) left the Israelites and traveled down the Arabian peninsula to the Becca Valley with her son Ishmael, who established a line of succession stretching to the Prophet Muhammad. It is interesting that Christians and Jews have followed a long tradition of relegating Muslims to be outsiders or unchosen. How do we begin/continue the repentance?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/june2002.html
Does G*D know everything, including the future, or is G*D still inventing, creating, growing into new life? An old, old question.
Does G*D already know Ishmael will be rescued by G*D and so sending Hagar and Ishmael cavalierly onward is but an opportunity to have G*D be seen in a better light, later?
Does G*D agree with laughing Sarah who is no longer laughing about Ishmael’s playing? (“Laughing” can be an euphemism that would make them lovers and “playing” can stand for sexual activity that would be the cause for banishment.) Then is it only after hearing Ishmael’s cries (but not Hagar’s?) that G*D wakes to the enormity of the consequence for the permission-giving already done?
How do you play this one, from G*D’s perspective? Do Abel and a Flood finally dawn on G*D and a rainbow sparkle? Was it in G*D’s cards all along? Is Ishmael's inheritance claim upon G*D primary or secondary, a given or an afterthought?
How does this play out within the institutional church? Is it the role of priests to play Sarah and cast out those with whom they disagree or accuse of one heresy or another? Consider how prophets are cared for in the same way as Ishmael – seen as second-class rather than first-born and cast out, but, while crying, cared for.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/june2005.html
How do I arrive at a place of “fearing not”? A significant view of this is the magical concept of correspondence – if I am like something else, then I am that something else. This is similar to much of the self-help therapies. In each case it is important to identify the specific correspondence and run with that one little thing in expectation that it will grow into a fuller identity or protection.
Consider Matthew 10 and Romans 6 in light of this Genesis passage.
“It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.” In what way does this happen without a disciple becoming a teacher or a slave, a master? Is this perpetual adolescence?
“Everyone who therefore acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.” What are the limits of acknowledgement? Is it naming only? How much emulation or becoming of Christ in one’s own setting is needed for acknowledgement?
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” What death is a death like his? Is it the form of crucifixion? Is it looking beyond the current principalities and powers until they unite to legally murder? And what happens if you live like him, rather than die like him?
“Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” When did Sarah stop laughing? What died in her? What fear rose up? It is one thing to begin to move from disciple to teacher, slave to master, and quite another to move from teacher to disciple and master to slave. Again we see limits of external correspondence.
- - - - - - -
finding our fearless place
pushes us beyond the surface
where crosses around necks
are protective amulets
saving one from so living
that a cross come to our back
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
More with the divisions between us being stronger than what holds us together. The power of the blood tribe is “strong”, just like the annual State-of-the-Nation opening phrase. Embarrassment at not being first, when all the promises and work were mine, is also strong. It doesn't take much for us to feel that we are under-appreciated and protection of our perception is certainly worth a life or two.
As we travel along we keep forgetting it is the second kid, the last kid, that seems to have a line of the future running through them. Second-born Isaac remains second born and a line for the Hebrew/Jewish tradition to follow.
It will be important to follow all of the Ishmael/Isaac encounters to catch a glimpse of reconciliation and working together at Abraham's death and to take their respective honored places when generational leadership came to them.
So who is the good and the bad here? Sarah – protecting her own and giving up another? Abraham – giving a skin of water, so little against a large desert? Hagar – for lifting a voice in weeping even if departing without a confrontation? Unnamed – (Ishmael) a nimrod anticipating Esau’s reversal? Isaac – so young, so symbolic?
Of these six archetypes, which most closely approximates your past? your present? your desire? Note that each is a mixed bag and so this question is not about ideals on one side, but the mixture of motives and actions that is you.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html
Imagine Pentecost as a weaning. It was a great feast.
Having remembered, we need to also remember that it wasn’t all that long before our appreciation of wonder able to overcome differences became prey of privilege and the development of creeds to weed out those who are different.
Whether we talk about Sarah and Hagar or any religion, we seem unable to hold our initial wonder but begin to wonder about one another and if they are really as true as they ought to be. In Iraq we hear about Sunni and Shiite. In United Methodism there is talk about an “amicable” separation. How many Catholic orders are there?
Each of these have heard their sense of distress turned to a blessing—“I will make a greatness of them.”
Soon enough there will need to be yet another Pentecost within and between all the various expressions of wonder. How long it will last is a live question. Until then: listen to the experience of others; in turn, tell your own experience; let these experiences wrestle with one another until further clarity grows from each loneliness and we can once again encourage each other in our differences.