Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, 2014 – Genesis 21:8-21; Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39
Back in the days when ordinary Canadians and Americans were assumed to be religious, the magazine Reader’s Digest produced a condensed version of the Bible. What an interesting idea. Modern people are busy folk. So why not take the Scripture and cut it down to essentials. If you had to condense the Bible, what would you leave out? Leviticus? Chronicles? A few minor prophets? The crazier parts of Revelation? The flip side of this question is what you would consider most essential—I’ll leave you to ponder that.
But as I recall, one of the things the editors at Reader’s Digest decided to leave out were the genealogies in the Old Testament—what used to be called the “begats.” That’s Elizabethan English for “was the father of.” So Seth begat Enosh, and Enosh begat Kenan, and Kenan begat Mahalalel, and Mahalalel begat Jared, and so on …. Who needs to know all that stuff?
Well, Christians may not need to know it, but Jews certainly do. Jewish scholars pointed out that one of the problems with the Reader’s Digest Bible was that, in a very real sense, to be Jewish is to be part of a genealogy.
Judaism is not so much a religion or set of ideas but a people, held together by ties of flesh, blood, kinship, and the land. No begats, no people. The succession of generations tells the story not so much of God’s faithfulness as of God’s blessing, both biological and, quite frankly, material. Fertility matters. Inheritance matters. Wealth matters. There is a reason the Bible cares so much about firstborn sons, and why receiving the father’s blessing is such a big issue.
The reason I say all this is that over the next few weeks you are going to be hearing a lot of the book of Genesis, which recounts the opening chapters in Israel’s family history. These are some of the most gripping narratives in the entire Bible. But Genesis is more than just good storytelling. It tells us about the God we worship. It tells us who we are as Christians. Strange though it may seem, we Christians also have a stake in those “begats,” even if it’s a different stake than for our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Well, enough of these preliminaries. Let’s get to Genesis! Today’s OT lesson plunks us down squarely in the midst of the Abraham cycle of stories. In chapter 12 we learned that God chose Abraham from all the nations of the earth, and promised that he would be the father of many nations. Through this one tribe all the tribes of the earth will be blessed. But here’s the problem: Abraham’s wife Sarah is barren. She is well past childbearing age. Note that this wouldn’t be a problem if Abraham were a philosopher, like Socrates or the Buddha, for then all he would need would be disciples to carry on his teaching. But God has promised Abraham that he would, literally, be the father of multitudes. This sets up the major tension in the early chapters of Genesis. How will Abraham get offspring? How will the family line be carried on?
Now Abraham and Sarah are intelligent, practically-minded people. If God won’t act, they will. So Abraham designates as his heir a kinsman, Eliezer of Damascus. Sarah goes one step further: she gives Abraham permission to father a child by her slave girl Hagar. Sarah comes across in these stories as a tough, unsentimental desert matriarch. Abraham rather meekly does what he’s told. Hagar bears a son, and calls his name Ishmael.
Meanwhile, however, God has not been idle. In Genesis 18 we read of a man, or three men, or an angel, or just possibly the LORD himself, showing up to tell Sarah that she will bear a son in her old age. Sarah laughs. But it is God who gets the last laugh, and so the child who is eventually born to Sarah is called Yitzsak, meaning “he laughs.” The big problem, the problem over the future of the blessing, has been solved. Thus, today’s lesson open with Abraham throwing a party in celebration of Isaac’s birth. But God’s gift creates a new problem, because now we have two sons to deal with: Isaac, the son of the promise, and Ishmael, the “extra” son, the one who is no longer needed now that Isaac exists.
As you could guess, two sons spells trouble. In this story the conflict isn’t so much between the two sons — that will be the case later on with Jacob and Esau — as it is between the two mothers. Who started it? In the version of the story told in Genesis 16 it sounds as if Hagar started it, by looking with contempt on the barren Sarah. You can easily imagine that scenario — the slave girl lording it over her mistress. Could you blame her? In the version of the story we heard today, on the other hand, it sounds as if Sarah started it. She sees Ishmael and Isaac playing together and gets angry. Why would she be angry? Is she afraid that if Ishmael inherits the family property there will be less for Isaac? Is it simply payback for Hagar’s attitude years before? As so often, the Bible does not tell us. We are left to guess at the psychology. At any rate, Sarah acts swiftly and ruthlessly. She simply demands that Abraham “cast out” the slave woman and her son.
Abraham is not happy — he is really not happy: “The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.” He knows that sending Hagar and Ishmael alone into the wilderness amounts to a death sentence. But before Abraham can even protest, God intervenes. He assures Abraham that it will be all right, that Isaac will carry on the family line, as God has promised, and that Ishmael too will be the father of a great nation.
That may all be very well for Abraham, but it is cold comfort for Hagar and Ishmael. It is a wrenching tale. When their water supply runs out, Hagar sets her son under a bush and goes away, unable to bear the sight of the child’s death. She raises her voice and weeps. But now Hagar, too, is comforted: “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.’” Then God opens her eyes, and she sees a spring of water, and gives it to her son to drink. Life continues, survival is assured: “God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.”
This is an extraordinary story. Extraordinary, because of Sarah’s and Abraham’s shameful action, which the Bible makes no attempt to hide or excuse. Extraordinary, because God intervenes in a situation that is literally hopeless. Hagar doesn’t even cry to the LORD, she has surrendered all hope, and yet God comes to her aid.
This is, you know, God’s signature — bringing life out of death, hope from despair. As St. Paul writes in one of his letters: “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.” God is with Hagar and Ishmael, the low and despised of this world. But he is also with Sarah, Abraham, and Isaac. It is through Isaac that the blessing will be carried on to the next generation, passing the torch to Jacob, the most cunning and resourceful patriarch of all, the one whose name will become “Israel.” Please note, God doesn’t begrudge human beings their material success. He wants to bless his people — really, truly, bless them! Even Ishmael seems to come off pretty well. A few chapters later in Genesis we learn that Ishmael did quite well for himself. He lived to the age of 137, fathered twelve sons, who became twelve tribes. Rather touchingly, he is present with Isaac at their father’s burial. Islamic tradition looks on him as the ancestor of the Arabs.
Here’s the thing, that God’s mercy, God’s blessing, God’s resurrection power applies to all of us — the rich and the poor, the king and the slave, Sarah and Hagar. God will bless us. Not, of course, in the ways we might expect. Certainly not in the ways we deserve. But bless us He will. Why is God dealing with these desert nomads in Genesis in the first place? Because Isaac would go on to father Jacob, who would father Joseph and his brothers, one of whom was Judah, the ancestor of King David who was the ancestor of…Jesus Christ. Jesus, the blessing of God incarnate, is where all of this is heading. And not just heading there, already there. For the God who hears Hagar’s cry, what other God can that be but the God of Jesus Christ, the spring of living water, as we hear in John’s gospel, already springing to assuage Hagar’s thirst in the desert. God’s resurrection signature is his Christ-signature, and it is written throughout the pages of the Old Testament.
Over the next few weeks, I invite you to listen for it.
That resurrection signature is also written all over our two readings from the New Testament today. That seems pretty obvious in the reading from Romans. To be baptized is to die — it’s that simple. It is the death of the old self, the beginning of a new self in Jesus Christ. Symbolically speaking, right? Of course we don’t literally die. But Paul says nothing about literally or symbolically. He says that in baptism we are crucified with Christ — united with his death. That is the literal truth about our lives.
We are new men, women, and children in Jesus, because of Jesus. Therefore we can’t go on living in the ways that characterize this rebellious, unhappy, fallen world of ours. And the great thing is, that even when we forget that and start living in the old ways we can always return to our baptism and start over. The great Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton said that going to confession is like becoming a newborn baby all over again, like waking up on the first day of the world.
I have saved the gospel text for last — don’t worry, I am not going to spend much time on it! — in part because it’s the hardest of our readings today. What a contrast to Genesis it is. In Genesis, family is everything. In Matthew family seems to be nothing. Here again what Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Come on, Jesus; this is a bit much. I get along very well with my mother-in-law. I don’t love my son and daughter more than you, but I do love them, and I don’t think I have to make such choices. How can you be so hard?
What we need to bear in mind here is that Jesus, too, is deeply concerned with family. Only the family he is interested in is the community of disciples, also known as the church. And that family is not constituted by biological inheritance, as in Judaism, but by discipleship. One becomes a Christian by following Jesus, thereby receiving a new father — the Father in heaven — and a new set of sisters and brothers. Where are those sisters and brothers? Look all around you. In just a little while you will share the Lord’s peace with them and gather with them around his table.
The gospel reading we heard is a hard saying, because God’s new family comes into being in the context of a hostile world. Here in North America, we tend to forget that. Practicing one’s Christianity is pretty easy — at least it is not illegal, and we are not (usually) harassed or imprisoned for it. But in other parts of the world, Jesus’ words would have more resonance — Egypt, Palestine, China, Sudan, northern Nigeria…. as well as in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If you go to the New York Times web site you can read the story of Josef, a Pakistani Muslim who, during a time spent studying in Germany, left Islam behind and converted to Christianity. Josef says to a reporter that, “I think I was impressed by the personality of Jesus himself,” he said. “The fact that he came here to take all of our sins, that moved me. I admired his character and personality long before I was baptized.” But Josef was deported back to Pakistan, where he faced hostility from his family, and eventually sought “safety” in Afghanistan, where his brother-in-law has recently arrived to find and kill him.
“For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.” The church is always a community at risk, because the gospel of Christ crucified is frankly threatening to the world’s ways of doing business. Jesus is simply preparing his disciples for the realities they will confront. So let us pray for the persecuted church, and reflect on what bold witness demands of us in this time and place.
Yet let us also not forget that the God we worship is the God of Israel, the God of mercy and blessing, who blessed Sarah with fertility and Hagar with life. God’s will is blessing, life, gift. For the Jew. For the Christian. For the persecuted Christian. And for his persecutor. It is the church that knows of God’s care for all of these, and the church that is called to proclaim from the housetops what it has heard: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
