Pentecost 2
Year A - Proper 21
You
remember the story of Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Abraham's wife
Sarah? She was given to Abraham as a surrogate when Sarah was unable to
conceive a child. She was given to him so that the BIG STORY would
continue in spite of Sarah's barrenness. And then Sarah, miraculously,
becomes pregnant herself and so Hagar and Ishmael, her son by Abraham,
are cast out of the camp. The scene in Sunday's reading is poignant:
alone and without support, food or water, Hagar lays her boy beneath a
tree and retires to a distance so that she will not need to witness the
boys death. She lifts up her voice and weeps. And God hears her. He
points her to the immediate satisfaction of her needs - a well of water -
and to a future which had not existed prior to his intervention.
Year A - Proper 21
Genesis 21:8-21
Among the hymns of my childhood was the one where:
God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets his tender view;
If God so loves the little birds,
I know he loves me too.
As
a boy I filed this one in the envelope marked "God is very big and can
do all sorts of things at the same time" because, while it seemed very
good of God to take care of the sparrows of Winnipeg, it was certainly
not the BIG STORY which God seemed most concerned about which was
obviously the family of Abraham and his descendants - the whole biblical
epic which culminated in the ministry of Jesus and then beyond to the
evangelization of the world, foreign missions, etc, etc.
Sparrows were, at best, a sideline.
You
remember the story of Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Abraham's wife
Sarah? She was given to Abraham as a surrogate when Sarah was unable to
conceive a child. She was given to him so that the BIG STORY would
continue in spite of Sarah's barrenness. And then Sarah, miraculously,
becomes pregnant herself and so Hagar and Ishmael, her son by Abraham,
are cast out of the camp. The scene in Sunday's reading is poignant:
alone and without support, food or water, Hagar lays her boy beneath a
tree and retires to a distance so that she will not need to witness the
boys death. She lifts up her voice and weeps. And God hears her. He
points her to the immediate satisfaction of her needs - a well of water -
and to a future which had not existed prior to his intervention.
You've been there. So have I.
Our
particular desperate corners - our crises, our illnesses, our family
problems - do not appear to be part of the BIG STORY. God has more than
one script, however and when things appear to be lost, the game to be
over and our goose well and truly cooked, we may be heartened by the
fact that the testimonies of countless thousands across the history of
the Christian faith begin at precisely there - at that moment of
imminent or certain loss. We cry out to the only one who can save us.
Grace is shown to what is small and cast away. The sparrow. The
marginalized servant woman. You. Me.
