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Dunbarton Congregational Church
June 22, 2014
Pentecost 2 Year A
“The Other Son”
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The time came when Sarah no longer had to
nurse Isaac, and on that day Abraham gave a
big feast.
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One day, Sarah noticed Hagar’s son
Ishmael playing, and she said to Abraham, “Get
rid of that Egyptian slave woman and her son! I
don’t want him to inherit anything. It should all
go to my son.”
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Abraham was worried about Ishmael. But
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God said, “Abraham, don’t worry about your
slave woman and the boy. Just do what Sarah
tells you. Isaac will inherit your family
name, but the son of the slave woman is also
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your son, and I will make his descendants into a
great nation.”
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Early the next morning Abraham gave Hagar an animal skin full of water and some
bread. Then he put the boy on her shoulder and sent them away.
They wandered around in the desert near Beersheba, and after they had run out of water,
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Hagar put her son under a bush. Then she sat down a long way off, because she could
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not bear to watch him die. And she cried bitterly.
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When God heard the boy crying, the angel of God called out to Hagar from heaven and
said, “Hagar, why are you worried? Don’t be afraid. I have heard your son crying. Help
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him up and hold his hand, because I will make him the father of a great nation.” Then
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God let her see a well. So she went to the well and filled the skin with water, then gave
some to her son.
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God blessed Ishmael, and as the boy grew older, he became an expert with his bow
and arrows. He lived in the Paran Desert, and his mother chose an Egyptian woman for
him to marry. Genesis 21:8-21
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If you stop and think about it, today’s reading is one of the most heart wrenching
stories in scripture. Leave it to the Hebrew Bible to capture in thirteen verses the
utter depth and pathos of the human condition.
We begin with a barren wife, so desperate to give her aged husband a child she
hands over her personal maid to him. We have the birth of their child, a little boy
whose father adores him and promises him a great inheritance. We have a
miraculous pregnancy by the now-aged wife, and the birth of a second son, the
“real one” if you will.
We have one haughty handmaiden, one jealous wife, one clueless husband, and
two innocent brothers. The wife wins. The husband is told the slave woman and
her fourteen year old son must be banished. “What will happen to them?” The
husband begs God for an answer. “Abraham, don’t worry about your slave woman
and the boy. Just do what Sarah tells you. Isaac will inherit your family name, but
Ishmael, the son of the slave woman, is also your son, and I will make his
descendants into a great nation.”
What nation did God have in mind? We never really think about that question, do
we? We should.
If you are a Muslim, the fifth pillar of your faith is the pilgrimage to Mecca,
birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad (May peace be upon him) and site of the
Ka’aba, the House of Abraham. According to legend, the Ka’aba was first built by
Abraham and Ishmael as a house of worship to the one God. In Islamic tradition,
Abraham did not completely abandon his first son. Mecca is where God brought
Ishmael and Hagar after their ordeal in the desert. Mecca is a place Abraham
visited, and home to the Arabic peoples, that other nation God had in mind. And
we thought Abraham was just our patriarch.
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The Ka’aba, which means cube in Arabic, is the most holy site in Islam. It is the
place toward which all Muslims face as they say their five daily prayers. Each year,
over two million Muslims gather in Mecca as part of a sacred pilgrimage known as
the Hajj. The event begins with a processional around the Ka’aba as a sign of the
centrality of God in one’s life. The pilgrims also walk back and forth seven times
between two holy “mountains” in remembrance of Hagar’s search for water for her
dying son. For Muslims, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are all sacred
prophets, though none is divine. For Muslims, their holy book, the Quran,
represents the last iteration of the story of God’s relationship with God’s people.
How is it we find ourselves so perplexed by, even afraid of, this last leg of the three
great monotheistic faiths? How might we understand more fully and
compassionately the situation that is currently unfolding in Iraq? I’d like to talk a bit
about this today so that we might respond as informed and loving followers of our
prophet, Jesus Christ.
Everything begins with history, doesn’t it? The complexities of Islam are no
different.
According to Islamic history, after the Ka’aba was built, Mecca became a central
stop along the great trade routes of the ancient near east. Like all wealthy and
powerful places, the ruling elite, in this case the Koresh, became idolatrous and
corrupt. Yet in the year 570, a child was born under the sign of a brilliant star. It is
said two angels descended upon him in the desert and removed the black spot of
sin from his heart. This young man, who would become the prophet Muhammad,
eventually married a wealthy widow fifteen years his senior. He was a great and
trusted leader of caravans throughout the region.
One day, seeking solitude in the hills, he was visited by the angel Gabriel who
instructed him to proclaim the word of God. Through a series of visions and
revelations, he brought God’s word to his people. These words were written in
what became the holy Quran.
How ironic that Muhammad’s mission was to cleanse Abraham’s temple of
corruption and return his people to faith in the One True God. Threatened by the
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ruling Koresh, he fled to Medina, where his message of peace and compassion
took root.
After six years of war with the Koresh, Muhammad finally returned victorious to the
holy city of Mecca, where he freed the citizens and inspired an ever-growing
conversion to the faith.
Sadly, like all religions, there is not a happy ending to the story. After Muhammad’s
death in the year 632, a fight erupted over who would succeed him. One group
favored electing a righteous follower; the other believed power should stay in the
family and passed to Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali. In a series of bloody
coups and assassinations the “Partisans of Ali” or Shia, and the generalist Sunni
Muslims began what is now a centuries-old conflict for control of Islamic minds
and hearts.
I couldn’t possibly recount in the time we have the history of Islam over the past
fourteen hundred years. Yet let me share some facts with you. There are over 1.6
billion Muslims in the world today. Of that total, 10% are Sh’ites and 80% are
Sunnis. Islam’s empire has at times exceeded the breadth of the Roman Empire.
As fellow “people of the book,” Muslims have historically welcomed Jews and
Christians in their midst. At the height of its influence, Islam led the world in art,
architecture, science, mathematics, medicine, social justice and religious
tolerance. Like all religions turned empires, Islam has been riddled with corruption
and hypocrisy.
Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, heavily supported by the United States and Britain
during the Cold War period, was a Shi’ite. Despite US efforts to bolster his reign,
his tyrannical monarchy was overturned in 1979 by a fundamentalist Shi’ite
revolution led by the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. With the Shah’s
departure, an Islamic state was established, ruled by religious clerics who in
complete contravention to Islamic theology, assumed godly status and mixed
religion and politics.
Over in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, though a Sunni, was in practice a vicious tyrant
who persecuted everyone that did not bend to his regime regardless of sectarian
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persuasion. Our intervention and efforts to establish democracy in Iraq have
resulted in a restoration of Shiite rule and the reemergence of deep rivalries
between the two sects.
Though in the minority, Shiite Muslims control most of the oil rich areas of the
Middle East. Angered by the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in 1982, the Shia in
Lebanon have united to form the extremist group Hezbollah, funded and
supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the same Revolutionary Guard poised to
offer support to the embattled Iraqi government today.
Then there is Saudi Arabia where the Sunni majority has persecuted the Shiite
minority for decades. Truth is, sectarian tensions are on the rise in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Bahrain, Libya, Tunisia, Malaysia and Egypt.
The growing concern is the possibility of a transnational civil war between Sunni
and Shiites where countries are reconfigured along sectarian lines.
And I haven’t even mentioned the radical Sunni militant groups like al-Qaida and
ISIS, intent on destroying moderate Sunnis, Shiite Muslims, and the entire West.
If your heads are spinning, my friends, take heart---they should be. Yet let us
remember that behind all this ideology, behind all this misguided theology and
vicious rhetoric is a God who simply wants to love and save us. Like Isaac and
Ishmael, we are all brothers and sisters ripped apart by warring parents who have
no idea what any of it is about because all we want is peace and a place to raise
our children. In the path of boots and bombs and murderous intent, there are
ordinary Muslims, billions of them, Shiite and Sunni alike, in Iran, Syria, Iraq,
Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Nigeria--the list goes on--who simply need a drink of hope and the world’s deep compassion. As the
rhetoric heats up here at home, I pray that as Christians and as Americans, we will
find the wisdom, courage, and restraint to stand, and only stand for them. Amen.
Rev. Cindy Bagley is Pastor of The First Congregational Church of Dunbarton, NH,
United Church of Christ. For more information, please visit us at www.dccucc.org.
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