Let Water Roll Down Like Justice

Genesis 21:14-19

Preached September 27, 2009

By Rev. Trina Zelle

Have you ever heard God’s voice?  You have?  You haven’t?  Do you mean to tell me that you never saw Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments?  You did?  You did! So you have heard God’s voice!  Actually you heard Charlton Heston’s voice as God’s voice – he played Moses in the same film too. It reminds me of the year in Sunday School when I played both the Angel of the Lord appearing to the shepherds and Mary – it made for a quick costume turnaround.  That’s what happens when you’re part of a small church!   

Back to hearing God’s/Charlton Heston’s voice -- do you remember what a scandal that was?  Someone actually daring to speak as God?  Some felt that the producers had overstepped their bounds – but by the time “Oh God” was released years later, no one batted an eye.  One more thing about that 1956 movie version of the Ten Commandments.  Not only did it imprint the voice of Charlton Heston into many of our memories as the voice of God, it is the source of the “Ten Commandments at the Courthouse Controversy” some years back.  Real crises finally knocked it off the front pages – like Hurricane Katrina drowning New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but for a while some folks were pretty riled up about it.  It seems that in order to promote his movie, Mr. DeMille donated replicas of the Ten Commandments” tablets to court houses around the country, where they sat for some forty years.  When attempts were made to remove them over separation of church and state issues, the outcry would have made you think that the founding fathers themselves had personally chiseled the words on them and placed them on the courthouse steps.

I guess our national memory is so short that a movie advertising promotion can literally become a sacred tradition within a few short years. Where’s God’s voice that?

And back to God’s voice -- trained acting voices aside, what do you think God’s voice really sounds like – because I don’t think that Hagar heard Mr. Heston, or even George Burns out there in the wasteland of Beersheba.    

I imagine she hears something totally Other – yet recognizable as a voice:  perhaps something shimmering and metallic, or urgent and sharp.  There’s a distinct possibility that it betrayed a hint of irritability: “Hagar -- stop crying! See that well over there?  Go get your son some water. Now.”

Maybe she heard a woman’s voice – like her mother’s or grandmother’s – maybe a voice beyond gender, but a voice nevertheless, pulling Hagar out of her despair and pushing both her and her vulnerable child towards their future. Because that’s what the voice of God does.  That’s what God is like. Isaiah says it best when,  quoting God, he writes: ‘my word does not come back empty.’  When God speaks, things happen.  A woman finds water.  A child is reunited with his mother.  A people comes into being. 

You may be wondering why I am referring to  God’s voice when the passage clearly indicates that an angel is speaking.  It’s because reference to an angel’s voice was a literary device used by biblical writers to avoid directly citing God – which was considered to be disrespectful.  Now there’s a group who wouldn’t have appreciated DeMille’s version of the story! 

In fact among the myriad of instructions given to Moses’ brother Aaron about the proper worship of God during their 40 years of wandering in the desert, was the order that God’s name was only to be spoken once a year.  This was to be done by the high priest who would make his annual entrance into the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Lord had been placed, original commandments inside.  He was to enter this sacred space with a rope tied around his ankle.  This was in case he were to die, overwhelmed by this encounter with God’s presence.  Then his body could be pulled back out you see – if he didn’t return after a certain amount of time.  

Back to Hagar.  Encountering God does not kill her but revives her.  She dries her tears, finds the well and cares for her son.  She eventually finds him a wife from her family of origin and Abraham’s divided family goes their separate ways, with violent intersections taking place to this day.  Deep wounds that aren’t resolved continue to fester – centuries or even millennia notwithstanding.

Taken at face value, especially when read in tandem with Jesus’ words about giving a cup of cold water to the least among us, I imagine that this passage will inspire many of us here today to renew our commitment to keep delivering water to the desperate women and men attempting to cross the treacherous southern Arizona desert.  If it does, so much the better.  They continue to die and if we don’t help, who will. 

But in truth this passage tells a hard and bitter story that makes me ache when I read it.  It represents a wound that remains unhealed.  Its consequences ripple across the centuries and continue to diminish lives, some of whom those of us sitting in this room know and love. 

When we move past the face of this account with its deceptive simplicity, we discover a passage that is not only difficult to unpack but contains little of comfort -- because the circumstances that put Hagar and Ishmael out there have not really changed.  Much of their numerous offspring are still at war with the offspring of Isaac – often for reasons that are a total mystery to us.  Ancient grudges never really make sense to folks on the outside –in fact they sound ridiculous – but they are no laughing matter. I think we all got a glimpse into that during the upheavals of the ‘90’s in the former Yugoslavia when Serbs referenced events 600 years in the past to justify their actions against civilian Muslims in the present day.

Yes, in part that’s just an excuse for wanton violence but it’s also real.  Ask anyone who has spent time in Israel/Palestine.  You don’t even have to scratch the surface for emotions to erupt and anger make itself evident.

A couple of years ago, my organization hosted interns (two of whom, you all graciously welcomed into your homes). One of them was a young woman from Turkey. I can’t remember what the particular news item was from the Middle East that day – but it involved the Israeli invasion of Lebanon over Hamas activities.  Since my college roommate’s son had been studying in Beirut and was now trapped by the fighting – and was in fact at risk because of the fighting – I made a comment sympathetic to the suffering of the people of Lebanon. 

Her response was immediate and touching.  As a Muslim, she felt great anguish over the events that were taking place over there but she had come to expect nothing but unsympathetic, even hard, responses from the American community. My few words, that did not even condemn Israel’s actions, but only acknowledged the suffering of innocents on the ground, were received with such relief and gratitude that I was taken aback.

Of course it’s all much more complicated than that – a few expressions of sympathy won’t solve such a massive, complex situation especially when both sides have plenty of bad actors who are not at all interested in resolution.  But maybe it’s a start.  Maybe Grandma’s habit of nodding and making encouraging remarks to go on talking is what’s needed here.

In any case, this is something that I see as our job –those of us who consider ourselves children of Abraham – spiritually if not physically.  And just as the survival of those migrants in the desert is our job, this job is the logical consequence of our founder’s mandate: Love one another as I have loved you.  The great commandment that both sums up and replaces all of the other commandments. 

If we, or people like us, don’t put out water, people will die at greater rates than they do now. If we, or people like us, don’t confront the attitude that permeates much of the Christian faith community, that Hagar’s children (the majority of the Muslim faith, but many Christians too)are somehow less valuable, that their suffering is of less consequence, that they are less loved by God, the ache will deepen, the abyss will widen, and the death and destruction will escalate.    

The problem isn’t so much Sarah’s pettiness or Abraham’s willingness to discard a child of his own flesh – there are plenty of examples of behavior like this throughout history and in the bible  It’s the notion that their behavior seems to have paid off.  Isaac’s rival is banished, his progeny become God’s chosen, and Ishmael is written out of the sacred story. And as far as too many are concerned that’s all we need to know.  Hagar? Ishmael?  What do they have to do with God’s plan for redemption?  But then we hear God’s voice  Then we hear God’s voice; not only rescuing but explicitly promising Hagar that her son will be the father of a great nation.  God’s voice.  Yet the other side of the family continues its refusal to acknowledge their legitimacy or even their right to exist in the land of their fathers.   

If you think I’m overstating the situation, ask yourself these questions: did God continue to speak to Hagar once this particular episode ended?  Did God accompany her in her exile?  Does God answer the prayers of her descendants?  If not, why not.  Please cite relevant scripture in your answer.

What I know is this: God’s rescue of Hagar and Ishmael is more than a rebuke to Sarah and Abraham for their behavior.  It is a message that reverberates down the generations to us.  In fact, it’s more than a message – it’s a demand, that we value the children of Hagar and respect them as much as we do Sarah’s children. That especially those of us who are both heirs of Isaac and followers of Jesus, relate to Ishmael’s heirs with as much respect as we do to Isaac’s.    

This was not the sermon I wanted to preach – especially on my first Sunday here with you.  I wanted to link this passage in profound and eloquent ways with my belief that we ourselves are about to embark on our interim journey in which God will supply our needs and we will discover the living water that refreshes our faith. 

In fact there are stacks of discarded papers on the floor at home saying as much.  But scripture – or I should say, God voice, speaking through scripture --  has a way of taking us places that we didn’t intend to go.  We think we’ve got the whole thing outlined, we know what we’re building up to, the illustrations are practically writing themselves and bang! it becomes clear that this passage has other plans and another message to communicate.   

Once that voice began to emerge from the passage, loud and clear and very insistent, I should have stopped and listened.  Instead, I doggedly continued to lay out the points that I was certain needed to be made – until I finally hit the wall and either had to submit to the emerging message or preach a nonsensical sermon.

This is also true for us here today as we consider the future of this beloved community of faith.  We all have our plans, some of them very detailed.  We all have our goals and hopes and dreams.  They may be exactly what is going to happen – or not.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that if we really listen for God’s voice and respond to it rather than our own agenda, the path will open and we will be led to the living water that waits for us.   

I want to close with a poem about that journey – it’s for Hagar and it’s for us.

West Texas Pilgrimage:

I drive through country once only visited

in childhood dreams. But now, awake,

I move through its barren landscape

to an uncertain future, finding brief comfort

in the clean scent of creosote

released by a sudden downpour

I fast approach then pass places

in the road where trees overhang

their shaggy heads. Years ago

they must have offered

the promise of shelter to other travelers

who rarely went further in a day

than their eyes were able to see

and although I do not stop, they reassure

me too, their presence saying that water

is near.  The fleeting drone of cicadas

that I hear when I slow down also testifies

to life no less real for its disguise

And doesn't all our journeying come down

to this the ancient search for hidden water 

and the discovery that what we seek 

sustains us in our seeking. Our travels

cannot end until we learn these truths

that each time we drink or pour, we worship

that our journey is worship, and its end too

when finally, finally, we give ourselves over

to what we have sought and feared for so long

and in that drowning are at last reborn