A Wideness in God's Mercy

Genesis 21:8-21

An excerpt from Second Class Scripture?

The story of Abraham and Sarah begins near the end of Gen­esis 11. In the final verses of that chapter, two relevant facts are presented: first, the couple live in the land of Haran with Abraham’s extended family, and second, Sarah is not able to have children. The settled life of Abraham and Sarah was disrupted in Genesis 12 by a command from God: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” In effect, Abraham and Sarah were told to leave the security they had come to rely upon and set out to establish a new household. After giving Abraham the command to go, God then went on to promise Abraham God’s blessing and protection, as well as that through Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3). But we know that God’s blessing of Abraham and Sarah was going to be a chal­lenge—because of Sarah’s inability to conceive and because we are told that Abraham was 75 years old while Sarah was 65.

Already in the story, then, there are fundamental questions that hang over the promises that God made to Abraham and Sarah. Would God be able to fulfill the promise of blessing? And would Abraham and Sarah trust God to fulfill that promise? The story moves on quickly.

A few chapters later, in Genesis 15, God narrowed the focus of the promise of blessing and made explicit to Abraham that he would have a son—even though time had passed and he was now well be­yond 75 years of age. But in Genesis 16, Sarah conceived a plan to fulfill God’s promise to give a son to Abraham. She would give her Egyptian servant, Ha­gar, to act as a surrogate and to produce a son for Abraham. This somewhat unconventional arrangement was successful in that Ha­gar did get pregnant and did give birth to a son—Abraham’s first-born son, Ishmael. All the characters in the story appear to have accepted that Ishmael was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abra­ham—everyone except God. This did not mean that all was well within this family for there was conflict between Sarah and Hagar.

Time passed. Then in succeeding chapters—Genesis 17 and 18—we find that God told Abraham that Ishmael was indeed not the son of the promise and that God still intended for Abraham and Sarah to have a son together. Finally, at the beginning of Genesis 21, Abraham and Sarah had a son—Isaac—even though Abraham was now 100 years old and Sarah was 90.

That brings us to this story in the second half of Genesis 21. There was trouble brewing in this household. There were two sons of Abraham now: Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian slave woman and Isaac, the son of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Ishmael was the elder son while Isaac was the living proof that God’s promises were trustworthy.

The plot thickened at the time of Isaac’s weaning. So, a feast was arranged. During the feast Sarah noticed that Ishmael was laughing or playing. For some reason that is not entirely clear, the sight of Ishmael on this occasion sparked anger and resentment in Sarah. It became crystal clear to her that this son of an Egyptian slave woman could not be allowed to remain in the household as the elder son of Abraham and become his heir. Ishmael could not be permitted to threaten the place of Sarah’s beloved Isaac.

So, Sarah demanded that Abraham expel both Hagar and Ish­mael from the household, to survive on their own---if they could. But get them out of here! For his part, Abraham was deeply troubled by this demand. Nevertheless, when God told Abraham to do just that, he did. Rising early in the morning, he gave Hagar some small provision of food and water and sent her and his son Ishmael into the wilderness, likely to die.

The scene in the wilderness, when the food and water have run out, is described briefly, but powerfully. Hagar, desperate with hunger and thirst, placed her beloved Ishmael under the shade of a bush and then left him so that she would not have to watch him die. Hagar then cried out—not to God, not to anyone in particular—she just wailed in her grief and despair. But God heard the voice of the boy—who to this point had said nothing—and promised Hagar that this is not the end. For God would make promises to and provision for not only Abraham and his other son Isaac, but also for Ishmael, the son who had been cast out. Ishmael, the son of the servant woman would be blessed by God; Ishmael, the son of the Egyptian woman, would be protected by God. Ishmael, too, would become a great nation. So, God opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw a well of water. The boy and his mother survived because God heard their cry and re­sponded even to the pain of the other son, the discarded son.

There can be no doubt that the story of Abraham and Sarah has a strong preference for Isaac over Ishmael. Isaac is presented as the legitimate son and heir of Abraham and Sarah. He is the son of the promise of blessing that God gave to Abraham at the beginning of Genesis 12. The entire story of Abraham and Sarah has been domi­nated by the unlikelihood that the promise of a son given to Abra­ham and Sarah in their barrenness and old age could ever be ful­filled—and yet it was! The birth of Isaac is a moment for celebra­tion and his weaning is a time for a great feast.

But the biblical writer recognizes that dominant stories like that of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac often have an underside to them. In this story that underbelly is represented by the characters of Hagar the Egyptian slave woman and her son who is Abraham’s first-born son. Like Sarah, much of the story would prefer to think of Isaac as Abraham’s only son, discounting Ishmael. God clearly had plans for Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah. It is through him that the promises to Abraham would be fulfilled. His story and the story of his descendants is the dominant thread through the remainder of the book of Genesis.

However, to me the surprising fact is that the writer of the book of Genesis included the story of Hagar and Ishmael at all, in effect signaling to us that God’s interest is not only in the Abrahams, Sa­rahs, and Isaacs of this world but also in the Hagars and the Ish­maels. This counter story reminds us that God’s choice of the de­scendants of Abraham and Sarah was not to the exclusion of others, as though God had nothing for anyone else. Contrary to what Sarah thought, the choice of Abraham and Sarah did not signal God’s re­jection of everyone else. It didn’t make everyone else a threat.

It is at this point that I think the story of Hagar and Ishmael ad­dresses us. In our calculus of the grace of God, too often God’s blessing of one person or group of people is understood to mean that there is no blessing for anyone else. And those who are not blessed are perceived as a threat. In the Genesis narrative, if God blesses Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, then the presence of Hagar and Ishmael poses a threat to the promise. It’s almost as though God’s grace is limited and God’s mercy is restricted to some because it is scarce, a rare commodity that must be hoarded.

But what this episode from the book of Genesis teaches us is that there is a wideness in God’s mercy, a generosity in God’s grace that has room not just for Abraham and Sarah and Isaac, but that espe­cially has room for Hagar and Ishmael. God’s choice of the de­scendants of Abraham and Sarah is not to the exclusion of others, as though God has nothing for anyone else. But rather this story scan­dalously tells us that God’s grace embraces those whom perhaps we, like Sarah, perceive as a threat. God’s grace, God’s mercy, is wide enough, broad enough, and deep enough to embrace even those whom we would fear or dismiss.

In the New Testament, one of the dominant themes that emerg­es from a close reading of the Gospel of Matthew is that the follow­ers of Jesus will encounter resistance and hatred just as Jesus did during his ministry. Disciples are not greater than their master. And the interesting observation to make is that in Matthew most often the opposition to Jesus arose because Jesus did not draw boundaries between those for whom God was concerned and those for whom God had no concern. Jesus met with such hostility be­cause he crossed those boundaries, proclaiming the good news that there is a wideness in God’s mercy—there is a breadth to the grace of God—that embraces rather than excludes, enfolding especially those whom we might consider unworthy of God’s embrace.

God’s grace subverts our attempts to define who is within and who is beyond the embrace of God’s mercy. In Genesis the inclusion of Hagar and Ishmael subverts the dominant story of Abraham, Sa­rah, and Isaac by claiming that God’s mercy encompasses the Egyp­tian slave and her son. Sarah’s plan to exclude Hagar and Ishmael from the blessing of God is overruled by the wide mercy of God that hears their cries. There is a wideness in God’s mercy.

In Matthew, God’s grace subverts the monopoly the religious leaders thought they had on God’s love. Through his preaching and ministry Jesus reached beyond those who were respectable and powerful to embrace the weak and marginalized, the tax collectors and the sinners, igniting the hatred of those who assumed God’s mercy was reserved for themselves. There is a wideness in God’s mercy.

In our world, God’s grace subverts our various attempts to create boundaries that exclude those whom we think should be cast out into a wilderness far removed from the love of God. But there is a subversive wideness to God’s mercy that embraces the Egyptian slave woman and her son; that embraces the refugee who has es­caped the tyranny at home; that embraces the widow, the orphan, and the alien—those who are most easily discarded in our society—and in our churches. There is a wideness in God’s mercy. May our hearts be open to this wide mercy of God.