Hagar and Ishmael: Genesis 16 v 1-15; 21 v 9-21: ‘God heard the boy crying’.
Conflict in the Middle East is endemic, goes back thousands of years and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. The day before these words were written Eyad Rahwi Al-Halaq, a thirty two year old unarmed Palestinian man, was shot dead by Israeli police near one of the gates to the city of Jerusalem. He was autistic, had the mental age of a six year old and ran away from the police, who believed he had a concealed weapon, because he was frightened.
The story of Hagar and Ishmael is relevant to today’s ongoing tensions not least because according to Islamic belief Ishmael was a prophet as well an ancestor to Mohammed and a number of important Arab tribes. The roots of the parting of the ways this story describes lie in a somewhat dysfunctional family life fuelled by the poor relationship between Sarah and Hagar (16 v 4-6). It is Sarah, who instigates a complex sequence of events by trying to fast track the promise God had made to her husband Abraham (that he would be the father of many nations) by organising a biblical version of surrogate motherhood. She later laughs at the very thought that she herself could bear a child at her age (18 v 12-13); the strain in Abraham’s extended family is clearly visible.
The fulfilment of the divine promise with the birth of Isaac doesn’t seem to have made family life any less complex. At the feast to celebrate Isaac’s weaning Ishmael, by now a teenager, starts poking fun at his younger half-brother (21 v 9-10) and the die is cast – the tension boils over and, as far as Sarah is concerned, Hagar and Ishmael have to go.
Whilst this acts in one sense as a cautionary tale about the dangers of second guessing God’s purposes and running ahead of them, the care with which God treats Hagar and Ishmael and the promise he makes to them remind us that no human being should ever be told or themselves feel that they, ‘should never have been born’. After Jesus heals the man born blind in John 9 (and in response to his disciples’ cultural assumptions) he repudiates the very idea that the man’s blindness was some kind of punishment for the sins of his parents (v 1-3) - nobody is any less beloved of God because of the circumstances of their birth or the failings of their parents. Every human life is sacred and Ishmael, notwithstanding his father’s weakness and lack of faith in God’s promise to him, bore God’s image. The storyteller wants us to understand that God really does care for him and his mother; we are not asked to believe that they somehow don’t matter.
Sarah’s jealousy culminates in a visibly distressed Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael, his wife and son, out into the unforgiving heat of the desert where, in spite of God’s promise that Ishmael will be the progenitor of a great nation (21 v 13), he must have feared for their lives. It is in the desert, with Ishmael close to death, that God demonstrates that even if Sarah couldn’t give a bean about them he most certainly could.
God not only saves their lives but invests them with meaning and purpose (21 v 20). Whilst it is implicitly stated in verse 12 that those descended from Isaac are the focus of God’s promise, Ishmael’s story makes it clear that his covenant with Israel is not at the expense of his care for and interest in people of other ethnicities. In fact the promise of God to Abraham in chapter 12 that he will be the father of a great nation is followed by another promise that, ‘…all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (v 2-3); a thought taken up in the latter part of Isaiah by which time Israel understands her vocation to be ‘…a light for the Gentiles’ (Isaiah 49 v 6). Jesus certainly didn’t understood his ministry to be just to the people of Israel and it was in part his refusal to be the kind of nationalist leader that many of his contemporaries believed the Messiah had to be that made them so desperate to do away with him.
Ishmael is regarded by both Arabs and Jews as the ancestor of the Arab peoples, something which takes us back to the recent killing of Eyad Rahwi Al-Halaq. The story of Hagar and her son reminds us that although as human beings we are capable of cruelty and insensitivity to those who are considered outsiders, God has no favourites (something Peter discovered at the house of Cornelius – see Acts 10 v 34). With nationalism an increasing problem (and not just in the Middle East) the Christian belief that God sent Jesus to die for all irrespective of who they are or where they are from means that racism and Christianity stand in opposition to each another on every level.
The story of Hagar and Ishmael also speaks of God’s particular care for the poor and the vulnerable; those who are not able to care for themselves for reasons very often beyond their control. Benefits in Britain have been inexorably squeezed in recent years, causing mounting distress and anxiety to many (greatly exacerbated by the coronavirus lockdown) and Christians need to respond. This could involve buying items for the local food bank alongside our weekly shop, giving to organisations that work with the disadvantaged in society and/or volunteering to help with projects addressing the needs of those in our own communities. The former Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, wrote a book about how Christians should respond to inequality which bore the title ‘Bias to the Poor’. It is hard to escape the fact that Jesus spent the vast majority of his time with the poorest of the poor, something that should continue to shape our outlook and our way of life as Christians.
Questions: As Christians what is it that gives our lives meaning and purpose? What might God be calling us to do in these unique and difficult times?
Prayer: Lord, you promised blessing to all people. As you bless our lives may we, by your Spirit, be a blessing to others today. Amen.