Hagar's Children

Zamzam

For six years I took several 14-passenger busloads of girls from my religion class to visit a mosque – The Islamic Center in Washington, DC. If time allowed after the always wonderful conversation with Sheikh Abbas we would allow the girls time in the Center’s gift shop. In the gift shop there are bottles of something called Zamzam Water. This water purports to be from the well that God/Allah revealed to Hagar  when she and her son Ishmael were in danger of dying from thirst (Genesis 21:8-21). Legend says that Hagar ran between two hills seven times before coming upon the well that saved her life and that of Ishmael who is recognized in the Quran as having assisted his father Abraham in establishing the first monotheistic worship site, the Kaaba, in what is today Mecca, the religious and geographical center of Islam. Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael are revered as ancestors of the prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him.

Thus the importance of reading these stories in Genesis. Hagar is believed to have been acquired as a maidservant to Sarah while she and Abraham were in Egypt to escape a famine in the land of Canaan. We may recall (Genesis 12) that Abraham had Sarah pretend to be his sister, not his wife, “so that it may go well with me.” Indeed, Pharaoh himself takes Sarah as his wife and it goes well with Abraham who acquires sheep, oxen, donkeys, and male and female slaves from Pharaoh. The Lord is not happy with the ruse, however, and brings plagues upon the land of Egypt until Pharaoh also discovers the ruse and sends Abraham and Sarah and “all that he had” out of Egypt. Hagar is believed to be among the servants.

As Sarah has so far not conceived a child let alone a male heir for Abraham, it is she who suggests that Abraham take Hagar as a second wife, which he does and Hagar becomes pregnant. (Genesis 16) At this point Hagar begins to “look with contempt” upon her mistress who in turn treats Hagar harshly. Hagar runs away and is resting by a well when an angel of the Lord appears to her commanding her to return to Abraham and Sarah. The angel of the Lord commands Hagar to name the child Ishmael, or God Hears because “the Lord has given heed to your affliction.” The angel further announces that the offspring of Ishmael shall be numerous beyond measure, the same promise made to Sarah and Abraham! Hagar, we are told, submits to the Lord’s instructions (which is a root meaning of the word Islam – submission to God), returns and bears a son and names him Ishmael as the Angel of the Lord had commanded.

Abraham’s first son grows up and is among those males both slave and free who are commanded by the Lord to be circumcised as people of the covenant. Abraham is 99 and Ishmael is 13. A year later Sarah is promised a son, and despite the hilarious impossibility of it all, Isaac is born – Laughter, or He Who Laughs! Sarah sees the now teenage Ishmael “playing with” or “mocking” her now toddler son Isaac. She orders Abraham to dismiss them both. Abraham is distressed “because of his son,” but the Lord commands him to “do whatever Sarah tells you to do,” good advice for all husbands always and everywhere!

Abraham gives them some bread and a skin of water and sends her away. She and Ishmael wander in the wilderness, but soon the water is gone and the boy becomes faint. Hagar lies him beneath a bush and goes off at a distance so as “not to look on the death of the child. She lifted up her voice and wept.” Yet, God hears the voice of the boy and an angel of the Lord appears to Hagar saying, “What troubles you? 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.” And as God opens her eyes she sees a well nearby, fills the skin, and gives the boy a drink from the Zamzam well. He goes on to be lauded in pre-Islamic poetry and is, nearly 2,500 years later, mentioned ten times in the Quran as revealed to the prophet Muhammed, pbuh.

Hagar, as Jewish sages picture her, was a woman of humility and piety. Indeed, few others were privileged to have an angel of the Lord speak to them twice, and produce miracles for them! She is a woman of strength and perseverance. She is obedient and submits unto the Lord.

Unfortunately, she does not fare as well in Christian literature. Saint Paul in his letter to the Galatians chapter 4 draws an odd allegory depicting the children of Hagar as “children of the flesh” and slaves unto the Law given at Sinai, while Sarah is depicted as having children of “the promise” who serve not in Jerusalem under the law, but in the “heavenly Jerusalem…now you, my friends, are children of the promise like Isaac. But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.” Ishmael’s “playing” with his little half-brother is characterized by Paul as “persecution.”

Such theologizing is only compounded and made worse by Saint Augustine who depicts Hagar as mother of the Earthly City of Sin, and the medieval scholar and reformer John Wycliffe who declares that the children of Sarah are redeemed, those of Hagar are unredeemed, “carnal by nature and mere exiles.”  One can readily see that such characterizations of a woman who faithfully submitted to the will of the God of Abraham can be read by Muslims as at the least unhelpful, and realistically problematic and blasphemous in today’s world.

It is interesting to note that although neither Sarah nor Hagar are mentioned in the Quran, Islam is largely a religion of practices, not philosophical ideas, and that to this day during the Hajj (one of the five pillars of Islam), pilgrims still run back and forth between two hills outside Mecca to recall Hagar’s attempts to save her son, and the miracle of discovery of the Zamzam well that ultimately revives Ishmael and saves the patriarch of an important religious tradition. And, as the Biblical texts in Genesis proclaim, Ishmael has become a great nation of people devoted to the One God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus and Muhammed.

A lot of ink is spilled with little close investigation or analysis over things in the Quran that are easily misunderstood out of context – the context of the poetry itself, and the context of the culture in which it arose. It is safe to say the same is true of our Bible. Few of us have ever spent much time reflecting on these stories. Yet, we live in a daily world of generalizations like “the West,” “the Islamic World,” “the War on Terror” and other fictions and lazy catchall phrases that are the fodder for headline writers and zealots. The truth is always more nuanced and tied to context – context that is often stated in poetry, allegory and metaphor.

It is no wonder that when Pilate asks the soon to be crucified Jesus, “What is truth?” that Jesus has nothing to say. What can be said to the Pilates of this world who want to see all of life in black and white when we live in a world of a thousand shades of gray? How ironic it is that the stories in our Bible ought to make us more understanding of Muslim faith, history and culture. It  is, in fact, subsequent theological metaphors in Christian tradition that ought to be seen in part as the source of our own misconceptions of the world’s fastest growing religious tradition. Islam is not the problem. Not knowing our own stories is. 

The Gospel As Comedy

Faith, Hope and Charity – The Gospel as Comedy

It seems to have been a week that has tested all three-Faith, Hope and Charity. It is a week that has seemed endless in many ways, leaving some of us looking for, hoping for, praying for an end to it all – endless violence, endless scandal, endless finger-pointing, blaming and shaming.

Along come an old man and an old woman and Jesus to redirect our attention if only for this moment. Yet, this moment always promises to be just enough – just enough time to disengage from the seemingly endless frays that constantly demand our attention, our thoughts, our emotions – enough to allow ourselves to reboot, refocus and rejoice in the good faith, hope and charity that can form the very foundation “under everything that makes life worth living.”

And what is faith? As one has put it, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” [Hebrews 11:1] Abraham, the old man, “and he as good as dead” [Heb 11:12!], has heard it all before – a place to call home, to be a blessing to all nations, and descendants as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore, stars in the sky, atoms of dust in the universe – most all of which, 95% of which we are told, remains not seen.

He and the old lady have been on the road to this home, these blessings and promises of children for nearly 25 years now and in their weariness have settled down beneath some terebinth trees – trees sometimes considered sacred in that region, if only because of the stories associated with them like this one. [Genesis 18]. The journey from Ur to Mamre and this oasis of trees has been anything but a blessing. Twice Abe has had to order Sarah to pretend to be his sister, rather than step-sister and wife, so as not to be killed by hostile war-lords along the way who would make off with this obviously still desirable woman who was already in her sixties when the journey began. There were problems with his nephew Lot and his family, and even more problems with Sarah’s hand-maid Hagar and the son Ishmael she bore from Abraham himself. All the things promised by Lord YWHW remained conspicuously ‘not seen.’ Like Woody, like Pete, like every one of us, the old man and the old woman have seen some hard travelin’ too.

Along comes the Lord, in the disguise of three men. A foreshadowing of father, son and holy ghost? We should note the character of hospitality to these otherwise strangers. Abe does not wait for them to knock on the tent door but races out to greet them, bows, offers water, arranges to wash their feet and invites them to rest. Then orders Sarah to get cooking, finds a good and tender calf to serve with curds and milk. Note also, this is no kosher meal! Abe stands by looking on as they eat, waiting to see, perhaps, how many Michelin Stars their little oasis might earn whence comes the comedy.

“This time next year I (we?) will surely return and Sarah will have a son.” Now you think they might both say something like, “Sure, sure, we’ve heard this all before,” which they had over and over again. But no. Sarah laughs. This is no chuckle. It is belly busting out loud fall on your face, tears streaming down your face, laughter! The narrator solemnly and somewhat piously notes, “…it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” As if even the narrator has given up all hope on all the promises made and re-made. The Lord hears her laugh and asks, “Is anything to wonderful for the Lord?” Abe’s hope for even one or two stars begins to fade. Sarah denies laughing, which is hard to do – and hard to distinguish from all the tears shed these past 25 years just waiting for this very moment and having long ago given up even the very thought of becoming a mother. “Oh yes, you did laugh!” says the Lord. Having used up all their tears there is nothing for the old man and the old woman to do but laugh, thinking it’s too good to be true. It turns out that the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true!

Indeed, the next year things do not improve for the family overall as the regrettable episode at Sodom and Gomorrah intervenes, and Abraham is ordered to circumcise not only himself but all males young and old, slave and free. Yet, along comes chapter 21, and lo and behold, Sarah is holding a bouncing little baby boy. Sarah is laughing again. Sarah is laughing still. “Everyone who hears will laugh,” she declares. We are meant to laugh at the very thought of it, rather than  piously intone, “The Word of the Lord; Thanks be to God.” It’s all a cosmic joke! It is the foundation of our faith, of our very life, to be able to laugh with Sarah to this day! The significance of all this is captured in the boy’s name: Isaac, which means laughter, or he who laughs.

If that’s not enough, here’s another one. In the ninth chapter of Matthew we find Jesus sending his twelve disciples out to do the work he is doing, ‘and greater things than these.’ After noting that the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few, he gathers them and us together and gives them and us authority. He gives them authority because he sees that the crowds that had gathered and followed him from place to place like so many camp followers during the War for Independence were, in the words of Matthew, “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus gives them, and us by proxy, authority over “unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.” He goes on to say, “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” These are marching orders for divine Charity! One notes that the disciples forget to laugh! But, this is the Gospel as divine comedy. We are meant to laugh, if only at our disbelief that we can do any or all of this that Jesus himself authorizes us to do.

Where does the laughter of Sarah and Abraham come from, asks Frederick Beuchner in his little book, Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale? “It comes from as deep a place as tears come from, and in a way comes from the same place. As much as tears do, it comes out of the darkness of the world where God is of all missing persons the most missed, except that it comes not as an ally of darkness, but as its adversary, not as a symptom of darkness but as its antidote.” [p.57] When we succumb to only the tragedy and darkness that confronts us almost daily, we often become paralyzed, or even worse, simply used to it.

When we go deep beyond the tears and laugh we free ourselves and are reminded of the often ridiculous promises of hope and redemption that have been given us by traditions that have been forged on the anvil of tragedy and darkness. We recall the faith of our mothers and fathers, our Sarahs and Abrahams. We remember that nearly all that lies ahead of us is in the realm of the  not seen. And that for the promises to come true we need to respond to the call for laborers to go into the field for the harvest, authorized to perform extraordinary acts of divine charity!

The fields are ripe and the harvest waiting, and the laborers are few. Our gospel of divine comedy is meant to make us laugh beyond our tears so that we can be free to join with those individuals of yesterday, today and tomorrow who in the hour of deepest darkness respond to the call, “Here am I, O Lord send me.”                                            https://youtu.be/dWJt3ZUKAWk

Third Person

Day of Pentecost ~ Acts 2: 1-21/John 20: 19-23

We name you wind, power, force, and then

            imaginatively, “Third Person.”

We name you and you blow …

blow hard,

blow cold,

blow hot,

blow strong,

blow gentle,

blow new …

Blowing the world out of nothing to abundance,

Blowing the church out of despair to new life,

Blowing little David a shepherd boy to messiah,

Blowing to make things new that never were.

            So blow this day, wind,

                 blow here and there, power,

                 blow even us, force,

Rush us beyond ourselves,

Rush us beyond our hopes,

Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.

            Come, come spirit. Amen.

            -Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, (Fortress, Minneapolis: 2003), p.167

This day we call Pentecost is about making things new that never were. Even Pentecost is made new. Formerly it was an Israelite agricultural festival, then a celebration of God giving God’s people Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and now it is transformed again as that day when the wind blew, or the breath blew depending on your reading, and the gift of the Holy Spirit transformed fearful, hiding, cowering people into hopeful, public, proclaiming people.

Luke (in “his” volume II, Acts) and John present similar yet vastly different accounts of this world changing event. In Luke there is wind and fire and the sound of rushing water. In John Jesus breathes on them. That is, there is some serious blowing going on. In my favorite Terry Gilliam movie, Baron Munchausen, the Baron has some sidekicks: one with incredible vision, one with incredible speed, one with incredible strength, and one with incredible lung-power. Gustabus can blow over an entire platoon of soldiers with a single breath! So, when we read of Jesus blowing on the disciples, it may in fact be more like Gustabus than the gentle, intimate breath felt on one’s neck from the one sitting next to you. This Breath/Spirit/Wind can knock you across the room and around the world!

The word is Ruach. When we hear of this ruach we are to think of how the ruach of God hovered over the waters of chaos we call creation in Genesis 1, and the same God of Israel is depicted breathing into a handful of moist dust to enliven the first person in the very next chapter, Genesis 2. We are not to concern ourselves with the Bible making up its mind. God’s Spirit-Wind is capable of taking any form, force or character. It is the power of life, the power of creation, the power that can blow something out of nothing!

Next, the two stories share a picture of Jesus’ friends huddled behind closed doors, in a house, fearful of all that lies on the other side of the door. There was good reason to be afraid. Jesus was dead, though not exactly gone. The Roman soldiers were looking to round up his followers. In Acts he has already ascended into the heavens, in John he keeps coming back and coming back and coming back again. No wonder they are afraid!

Then Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” followed by a display of his wounds on his hands and his side. As if to say, “See, here, this is what fearful people do to others.” Then he says, “Peace be with you. As the Father sends me so I send you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” Then all this stuff about forgiveness.

One suspects that when the Risen Lord breathes on you you feel it. You really really feel it. It moves you to a new and unexpected place. It sustains you, enlivens you and gives you the courage to walk out the door and do and say everything you do In His Name.

Next, he gives them power to forgive. How do you want your forgiveness? He teaches them to pray, forgive others as you wish to be forgiven. Don’t forgive and you carry it with you forever. That would be the retention part. Those who feel the breath are to become a community of forgiveness, forgiving the way we would like to be forgiven.

How hard is that? Look at his hands and his side. And consider what is really being said here: get outside of this locked room! Get out in the world! It’s time to make things new that never were! No time to sit around and be afraid. It is time to blow the world into a new world of Shalom and Forgiveness. Shalom. That would be his word, not mine. Peace is about as anemic a translation of Shalom as we can imagine. Shalom means justice and peace for all people. Not some people, not a lot of people, not most people, but ALL people! Shalom means respect and dignity for ALL people. Shalom means seeking and serving Christ in ALL people. Shalom means taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves.

One day when our daughter Cerny was still in grade school she asked me, “Dad, what’s the common good?” This was her homework assignment. We talked about it. I should have said, “Jesus calls the common good Shalom.” He breathes on us. God breathes in us. The Spirit blows us away! So that we might have life and have it abundantly. So that we might be energized. So that we might be driven out the doors! So that we might get out into the streets and provide for the common good. For all people. What the Bible is all about is The Common Good combined with a huge helping of forgiveness.

In the end, my friends, it is all about this Shalom he talks about. My goodness, he says it over and over again. He calls us to receive his Spirit and his Shalom. It is up to us to accept it, get out of here and work for the common good. That is Pentecost. It does not get any simpler than this: Time to make things new that never were!

So blow this day, wind/ blow here and there, power/ blow even us, force/ Rush us beyond ourselves/ Rush us beyond our hopes/ Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.    Come, come spirit, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire!