Sunday, June 25th: "Along the Way: Wandering"

Watch the sermon here

First United Presbyterian Church

“Along the Way: Wandering”

Rev. Amy Morgan

June 25, 2023

Genesis 21:8-21 

8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 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. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

“Montani Semper Liberi” means “Mountaineers are always free.” Libera is the feminine form of liberi, meaning “free.” And Libera is the name of an organization working in every single county in West Virginia to empower women toward a life of freedom. 

Their primary tool for accomplishing this grand vision is simple: they listen. Their specially trained listeners invite women to tell their stories. When these women feel heard, they can identify their needs, express their hopes, and open to new possibilities. The listeners can then open their eyes to resources they might not have seen before. 

Karen Haring, the founder of Libera, resonates with a quote from author and theologian David Augsburger, who wrote that, “Being heard is so close to being loved that, for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” Listening to someone, assuring them that they are heard and seen, is a simple but incredibly powerful act. It is an act of love. It saves lives and leads people to freedom.  

In the story of Genesis, Hagar had been seeking freedom for a long time. She was the handmaid, or, in some translations, slave woman, of Abram’s wife, Sarai. When Sarai became too old to conceive a child, she gave Hagar to Abram so that she could be a surrogate mother of sorts and bear a child for Sarai. But when Hagar became pregnant, Sarai did not feel like this was the surrogate relationship she’d carefully planned. The Hebrew is a little unclear about Hagar’s attitude, but it is clear that Sarai did not like it. Sarai treated Hagar harshly, and eventually her oppression became so intolerable that she fled to the wilderness to be free of her mistress. In the wilderness, an angel of the Lord addressed Hagar by name, heard her distress, and encouraged her to return to Sarai, for now. She was instructed to name her son Ishmael, which means, “God hears.” Embedded in her son’s identity was the affirmation that God hears, which is so close to being loved as to be indistinguishable. 

Hagar is the first woman in Scripture whom God hears and speaks to individually. This hearing makes her feel so seen, known, and loved, that she gives this god the name El-roi, which means “God sees.” Hagar did not find the freedom she sought yet, she had not found libera, but she felt seen and heard, known and loved, by God. 

Fast-forward 16 years or so, and Abram now has a second son. Sarai has a son of her own, and she won’t tolerate him playing with the surrogate child, Ishmael. In fact, she won’t tolerate Ishmael and Hagar at all. Sarai demands they be cast out, which in the ancient near-east was basically a death sentence for an unmarried woman and her child. 

Hagar had sought freedom in the wilderness before, but wandering in the desert without food or water now feels like the farthest thing from freedom. This Egyptian slave woman, this surrogate mother, has been living in a tenuous, dependent, and vulnerable relationship with Abram’s family, the patriarch of Israel. She was an outsider of no status, and has no resources aside from a loaf of bread and a skin of water. 

If she and Ishmael were to meet their end at this point in the story, it seems like it would make no difference, really, to the Hebrew people who inherited the promises of God through Isaac. In fact, it seems strange that the Genesis story remembers Hagar and Ishmael at all. And so we have to wonder if part of the intention of this story is for Israel to identify in some way with both of Abram’s sons. 

Hagar is sent into the wilderness and wanders in desolation, grief, and fear. The Hebrew term translated “sent away” is the same word that is used when Pharoah finally sends the Hebrew people away to end the plagues of Egypt. Both Ishmael and Israel cry out to God and God hears them. Both Ishmael and Israel wander in the desert and are in need of water. Both Ishmael and Israel are guided to and provided water in the wilderness. Both Ishmael and Israel receive promises from God. Both Ishmael (and his mother, Hagar) and Israel find freedom from slavery after going through the wilderness. 

The story of Hagar and Ishmael is a reminder of the interconnectedness of Israelites and Ishmaelites. Ancient Israel recognized, as Old Testament scholar, Susan Niditch, affirms, that “God is the god of those deserted in the wilderness, of those on the fringes,” no matter who they are. The God of Israel is not for Israel alone. The God who sees and hears, who knows and loves, has promises, blessings, and provision for all those who must wander and suffer and cry out. Even Ancient Israel recognized that they were not the only ones to ever experience slavery and abuse, to wander and be in need, to cry out in desperation. Even Ancient Israel believed that God cared for anyone in that vulnerable and painful situation, no matter what. Ancient Israel knew their God sees and hears, knows and loves, every weary wanderer. 

God listens, hears and sees the needs of those who have been abused and cast out, those who wander the edges and live in vulnerability. God hears the cries of children, like Ishmael, who suffer from the senseless conflicts of the adults in their lives. Author and scholar Renita Weems wonders if “it will take our children weeping on our behalf – our children weeping for the sins and prejudices and stubbornness of we their mothers and fathers – to convince God to intervene on our behalf. Perhaps as a global community we will be saved – if we are to be saved at all – because of the little children whose innocent tears will prostrate heaven. Though their tears have not always moved us, hopefully they will move God. God have mercy on us.”

Libera was moved by the stories and struggles and tears of children aging out of foster care. The adults in their lives were not able to care for them, and they became wards of the state. But the state abandons them in their late teens, and they must fend for themselves, usually with very few resources. Libera listeners hear the cries of these children. They are heard, which is indistinguishable from being loved, a love many of them have lacked and longed for. And that love empowers them to see and access resources, like springs of water in the wilderness, and to gain freedom from the bonds of their challenging childhoods. 

Libera has saved women from abusive relationships and saved teenage girls from dying by suicide. They listen in juvenile detention centers and foster care homes. They listen on Zoom and on a bus that travels to all 55 counties in West Virginia. They wear t-shirts that say, “I’m listening,” and they live into that motto. 

And they are connecting women and girls with springs of water they did not see. They help them to see therapists and shelters, educational opportunities and, most importantly, their own gifts and strengths. 

Our world is filled with Hagars and Ishamaels, people longing to be heard and seen, known and loved. People wandering in the wilderness, lost, afraid, and grieving. People longing for freedom. 

Our children are weeping on our behalf, as they watch us senselessly throw up our hands or cast each other out instead of solving the existential threats we are all facing. While we turn away so we don’t have to watch them suffer, they cry out for action on climate change, for safer schools, for mental health resources, for racial and economic justice, for healing from addiction, for real, human connection, for freedom from fear and a future with hope. Their innocent tears prostrate heaven as they march into state legislatures and protest outside their schools. And they do not feel heard. 

This week at Art Hub, I sat for just a couple of minutes with a group of children while we ate our snack. And in just that short time, several of them began to share about loved ones who had died – aunts and cousins and grandparents. They told me stories about these loved ones, some of whom died before they were born. But within seconds of me sitting down on the floor with them, these kids eagerly shared their stories with me – stories of grief and meaning and depth, not just what they ate for breakfast or what they wanted to be when they grew up. The first thing they wanted to tell me about was death. They wanted me to hear where it hurt. They wanted me to hear what they were scared of. 

Beloved, we worship a God who listens, who hears us so that we can know how deeply we are loved. May we remember that in those times when we find ourselves wandering in the wilderness of life, desperate and afraid and broken. 

But may we also remember that belonging to that God means that we are called to listen, to share God’s love by truly hearing and seeing others, especially those who have been abused, cast out, and forced to wander the margins of society. Whether it is teens who have been cast out of their homes because of their sexual orientation or gender identity or female pastors who have been cast out of the Southern Baptist Church, we can witness to the God who sees and hears by simply listening. We can hear those who are wandering as refugees and those who are wandering the streets of Loveland without a place to call home. We can hear the cries indigenous women who go missing and no one goes looking for them and the cries of exploited workers. 

We are people who belong to a God who hears, and that hearing is indistinguishable from love. We can offer all the weary wanderers of this world the love of God simply by listening, by hearing their cries, their struggles, their stories. Those weary wanderers might be sitting next to you today, or you might pass them on the street tomorrow. They might be sitting in a prison cell or sitting in the car next to you on the freeway. Wilderness wanderers are not hard to find in a society that thrives on division and striving for status. 

Like the listeners of Libera, we can set people free. The God who heard the cries of Hagar and Ishmael, who heard the cry of Israel in slavery in Egypt, is the same God who hears our cries and the cries of every beloved and suffering creature. God’s hearing is God’s love, and that love leads to freedom. When we hear as God hears, we love as God loves. And along the way, that love leads to freedom. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.